Compilation
Maprounea gracilis

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Name

Identification
Maprounea gracilis Dew. [family EUPHORBIACEAE ] Verified by Not on sheet, Maprounea africana Müll. Arg. [family EUPHORBIACEAE ] (stored under name); Verified by S. Koma, 2008
Related name
  • Maprounea gracilis
  • Maprounea africana

Flora

Entry for MAPROUNEA gracilis Dewèvre [family EUPHORBIACEAE]
Herbarium
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (K)
Collection
Flora of Tropical Africa
Resource Type
Reference Sources
Entry From
Flora of Tropical Africa, Vol 6, Part 1, page 441, (1913) Author: (By J. G. Baker, with additions by C. H. Wright.)
Names
MAPROUNEA gracilis Dewèvre [family EUPHORBIACEAE], MSS. in Herb. Brux.
MAPROUNEA africana Pax ex Durand & De Wild [family EUPHORBIACEAE], in Bull. Soc. Bot. Belg. xxxvii. 107, wholly; Th. & Hél. Durand, Syll. Fl. Congol. 499, partly: not of Müll. Arg.
MAPROUNEA africana Pax var. obtusa [family EUPHORBIACEAE], l.c., and Th. & Hél. Durand, l.c. 500, partly (as to Laurent 14 only).
MAPROUNEA africana Pax & K. Hoffm. var. gracilis [family EUPHORBIACEAE], in Engl. Pflanzenr. Euphorb.-Hippoman. 179.
Information
A shrub 5–7 ft. high, all parts glabrous; ultimate twigs passing into the inflorescence 1–1 1/2 in. long. Leaves short-petioled, thinly membranous, with age becoming firmly papery, ovate-lanceolate or ovate, obtuse, base rounded or faintly cordate, margin entire, 1/2–1 1/4 in., very rarely 2 in. long, 1/3–1 in. wide, glaucescent beneath, finely nerved and reticulate; petiole slender, 1/4– 1/3 in. long; stipules small, triangular. Inflorescence usually 2-sexual; male portion globose or subglobose, 1/5 in. long, dense-flowered; female flowers 1–2, basal, long-pedicelled, pedicels in fruit up to 3/4 in. long; male bracts lanceolate, acute, each 3-flowered, with 2 simple or occasionally 2-partite basal glands; bracts and flowers greenish-yellow. Male calyx irregularly 2–3-lobed. Stamens 2–3, exserted. Ovary subglobose. Capsule red, globose, about 1/4 in. (rarely 1/3 in.) across. Seeds dark slate-grey or dull black, subglobose, smooth, 1/5 in. long; caruncle half as large as the body of the seed.
Distribution
Congo Lower Guinea Niari region, Thollon, 977!Congo Lower Guinea Mayumbe; Shinon, Laurent, 14! Bingila, Dupuis! Stanley Pool district; Kisantu, Gillet, 76! Kisedinse, Gillet! near Lemfu, Butaye! and without precise locality, Smith, 51! Laurent!Cameroons Upper Guinea Tibati, 3000 ft., Ledermann, 2435!
Notes
A very distinct species, and the first of the African forms of Maprounea to find its way into European herbaria, where it has been treated independently by Baillon and by Müller as a state of the American M. guyanensis, Aubl. It is, however, as Pax and Hoffmann explain, more nearly related to M. africana, Müll. Arg. From that species, however, it differs so greatly in its seeds, and in other respects, that it seems preferable to treat it as deserving independent recognition.

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